Ep 64: From Art to Aid: Eric von Haynes on Creating Community Connections

Summary of the episode:

Today’s conversation centers on the critical distinction between mutual aid and charity, as articulated by our guest, Eric von Haynes. Eric emphasizes that mutual aid is rooted in reciprocity and community connection, contrasting it with the more transactional nature of charity. He shares insights from his extensive work in mutual aid initiatives, including the Love Fridge project, which provides community fridges stocked with food and resources, emphasizing the importance of anonymity and equality in these efforts. Throughout the discussion, Eric reflects on his artistic journey, particularly his passion for printmaking as a means of disseminating ideas and fostering community dialogue. With a focus on the values of horizontality and support, this episode encourages listeners to think critically about how we share resources and uplift one another in our communities.

Takeaways:

• Mutual aid emphasizes reciprocity and community support, distinguishing it from mere charity.
• The Love Fridge initiative in Chicago showcases how community fridges can foster mutual aid.
• Eric advocates for slow media, valuing thoughtful engagement over rapid consumption.
• Art practices, like printmaking, provide a platform for voices that challenge societal norms.

Chapters:

• 00:01 - Introduction to Nosy AF Conversations

• 03:10 - Understanding Mutual Aid and Reciprocity

• 12:04 - The Concept of Mutual Aid

• 17:46 - Community Fridges and Mutual Aid

• 26:42 - Community Engagement and Food Rescue

• 36:52 - Understanding Mutual Aid vs Charity

• 40:45 - Values and Practices in Community Engagement

• 46:25 - The Importance of Print in Art and Society

• 55:13 - The Philosophy of Anarchy and Community

• 01:01:40 - The Importance of Slow Media

• 01:06:45 - The Legacy of Robert Blackburn

About Eric:

Eric Von Haynes operates under the imprint Flatlands Press and co-founded Love Fridge Chicago, a mutual aid initiative supporting community fridges. He is a visiting senior instructor of graphic design at the UIC School of Design and currently serves as the president of the Chicago Printers Guild.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Eric Von Haynes: Drawn Through Restraint

Dean Spade Mutual Aid Book

*link to this book is with an affiliate link*

Community Centered Design

Love Fridge

Btw Happy Anniversary, Love Fridge! 💕🎊

Food Not Bombs

Chicagoland Food Sovereignty Coalition

Getting Grown Collective

Narcan

Robert Blackburn

Gabe Hoare

Connect with Eric

Instagram: @Flatlands_press

Connect with Stephanie

Instagram: @stephaniegraham

Email: stephanie@missgraham.com

Check out my art and projects

Enjoy my work? Join my studio newsletter

More Episodes at noseyaf.com

Please leave me feedback or send me a message:

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Episode Credits:

Produced, Hosted, and Edited by Me, Stephanie (teaching myself audio editing!)

Lyrics: Queen Lex

Instrumental: Freddie Bam Fam

Hey, friends.

Welcome.

And welcome back to another episode of Nosy AF conversations about art, activism and social change.

I am Stephanie, your host and your friend.

And y'all, happy holidays.

It is really.

The holidays are up and at em out here.

You know, they have taken off and we are zooming into a new year.

And I sort of love it.

I love seeing all the lights, all the colors.

It really makes me happy.

And you know who else makes me happy?

Our guest today.

He too is filled with lots of light and color, and that is the no other than Mr.

Eric von Haynes.

And Eric is truly a kind and committed, focused guy.

He operates under the imprint Flatlands Press and co founded Love for Chicago, which is a mutual aid initiative supporting community fridges.

He is a visiting senior instructor of graphic design at the UIC School of Design and currently serves as the president of the Chicago Printers Guild.

I'm really happy for you all to meet Eric today because I've had a pressing question about mutual aid that I get into right off the bat.

So we talk about mutual aid, we talk about love fridge, and then we talk about Eric's artwork, his lovely, lovely artwork.

And so listen, let's start the theme song and let's get into this conversation.

I am so happy you're here.

Vision of a star with a mission in the cause what you doing?

How you doing?

What you're doing and who you are Flex yourself and press yourself Check yourself don't wreck yourself if you know me then you know that I be knowing what's up.

Hey, Stephanie.

Graham is nosy as Eric.

Welcome to Nosy af.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me.

Yes.

So I think the one thing question I've been dying to ask you is with all of your, you know, you're so like, generosity is like a big part of your practice, I believe.

And I'm wondering what's the difference between begging and mutually.

I asked because I see on social media people, the trend.

The trend will ask for stuff and then they'll be like, hey, I need to send my daughter to camp and I need $600 to do it.

And then people be like, dang, didn't you just ask for like money like last time?

Like, do kids need to go to, you know, like it is whole thing?

And then I remember seeing specifically someone be like, they don't understand mutual aid.

I'm like, well, now I don't understand it.

Well, first off, as the mutual aid principles I practice start with reciprocity.

So if you're asking for something the idea that there's a, it's the term mutual is there for a reason.

Right.

Like mutual meaning there's some give and take.

So between you and me, I'm not a big fan of this social media.

It's really the kids, it's really the youth that have adopted the idea of mutual aid in the, in the digital for, in the digital realm around asking for funds for different things.

And I don't, I'm not, I don't think there's anything wrong with asking for help, but there's a lack of reciprocity and there's a lack of connection and full disclosure.

I, I feel like it's charity.

What they're actually practicing at best would be charity or just fundraising.

But mutual aid sounds so much better, right?

When you're asking someone to give you funds than fundraising.

Right.

But mutual aid is really about reciprocity.

So the like, if I, where I come from, my family background, mutual aid is just natural.

It's a human thing.

We just live in a capitalist dog eat dog, step on the next person's back neck to get something world right now.

So people have lost, I think sometimes have lost, lost the plot.

But none of us would be here without the support and help of others.

Like none of us.

Yeah.

And that's what mutual aid is.

That's what mutual aid is.

It's the, it's the practice of helping and offering resources when you can to those that need.

But it's also open.

It's supposed to also be a space of reciprocity.

So folks should also be offering something in return.

And that doesn't mean it has to be of equal value.

I'm not talking about a capitalist abstract labor.

But like if I were to ask you for some funds for my daughter, I might be like, I can't.

I, I need some help with my daughter doing A, B or C.

But I make cookies, but I do this, but I do that.

It's, it's like, like ain't nobody out here.

The folks that are going to, the folks that are giving you the funds need, they fund, right?

So they could use that money too.

Otherwise you just go, go get a grant, go, go to some, some government space.

When you're talking about community folk, you should be aware that those folks are taken from their own resources to help you.

And rightfully so.

You should be wanting to do what?

Balance those scales in any way possible.

Right?

Like even a thank you letter.

I mean, it doesn't have to be.

I'm not trying to say you're balancing the scales with, I'm going to come cut your grass because he gave me $50.

Yeah.

But I've always had a problem with the online like face with some kind of Venmo thing.

Hey, I need this.

Here's my little story.

Now give me some money.

And that's just because I'm old school and I'm like, I don't know.

If I don't know you, how am I don't know you?

How do I know that any of this is like a reality, number one?

Number two, where's the reciprocity come in at?

And to each their own.

If you got the funds, you can help folks do that.

But if you're actually coming out of pocket because you think some, it's urgent.

It's urgent for somebody, maybe think about that, Think about what you're doing and how you're doing it.

Right.

So, you know, I, I, I just believe in mutual aid being, being in some capacity, being there, being some connection there.

So just asking someone, just asking me for money is not mutual aid?

It's just fundraising, in my opinion.

But yes.

So, yeah, that's really helpful to not get it twisted because it really was, I was really getting confused.

Yeah, it's just buzz, It's a buzz.

It's on, but it's on, it's on trend now.

Like, there's, there was a book created by Dean Spade that was released during the, during the pandemic that helped spawn, decide like the, like some kind of dogmatic or philosophy around mutual aid.

I've read it several times.

I've taught, I've like offered it as instruction manuals to students when I work with students on community centered design.

I wouldn't say I disagree with Dean Spade's perspective, but they didn't invent it and it's not.

And my mutual aid principles come from my background, where I grew up, the way I grew up.

If you had extra vegetables from the yard, we offered them to our neighbors.

If you knew somebody might need them, vegetables for sure we offered to them first.

Right.

But then, or for another example, taking out scarcity.

Right.

Because it's not always about scarcity.

That's something too that I think is like a misgiving.

We grow tons of pollinators in my garden.

My partner Risa will like overgrow, like overseed and so this season we offered fully grown plants and trees to folks that just came and got them, if they just came and got them.

Right.

That's, that's a form of mutual aid.

Right.

Like, there's a rest.

Like, and it's not when I.

And the reciprocity is not just, hey, I got some tomatoes, or I got this, hey, you want some of that?

But also, we're also offering more pollinators to the environment, which, in what.

It helps all of us.

You see what I'm saying?

So that's a.

That's another way of thinking about how something.

The reciprocity angle, it doesn't have to be one to one.

I mean, I don't know, we might talk about this later, but the love fridge work.

I do.

I'm not looking for someone to, to meet me or to balance the scales with me as an individual.

It's.

I'm hoping that they pay it forward is the concept.

Right.

Like, I have the time, I have the energy.

I can do this.

So therefore, I hope that this helps someone else pay it forward.

Hope this helps someone else not only have a full belly, but understand that someone cares about them without having to know them, without them having to tell their whole story.

And I don't want to go on a diatribe, but that's what I really dislike about the mutual aid digital realm is because it plays off of victimization and the idea that you have to tell someone all this bad stuff to get some money.

Like, you can be just.

You can just need some money.

Why?

Like you.

We all need money.

If you ain't got no money, you need some money.

Why is it.

It's like this litmus test.

Well, I need some money because my foot broke.

You needed money before that.

That's why you need money now.

But now you talk about you need money.

So it's like this.

It's this twisted game of almost stay away from some trigger words, but it just feels like the monetization of victim.

Victimization in a way.

Yeah.

And I about.

I don't.

I don't really.

I think it's sad that anyone feel like they have to go online and tell their life story to get a couple of dollars.

Yeah, like that, that, that alone, that alone is just like off.

So, yeah, it gives me.

And I don't know, like, it just, it gives me like secondhand embarrassment.

But I, I will help if I can.

But I feel like I've seen folks do it, like, over and over again and they always are doing in the sense of like in the game of mutual aid.

And I remember specifically I was at a photographer's event and there was a person there who was talking about how they needed money for a specific lens and how they were.

They were gonna.

Well, yeah, they were gonna put something out, you know, to try to, like, if, like, mutually, like, hey, if I have this lens, I'll be able to do this.

And my friend Danielle was with me, and she's a pretty successful wedding photographer, and she's like, oh, I can show you with your lens, like, how you can do portraits, you know, like, if you want.

Like, I'll be happy to.

Like, you don't have to do that.

And you could do it right away.

And, like, you know, she had, like, this cool little, like, prism out.

And.

And the person's like, okay, yeah.

But then they still, like, posted.

They still, like, went and posted about their need with their story and the need for this lens.

And I was just like, now this is, like a huge wedding photographer that's down to help you and educate you.

That's mutual aid, and that is mutual aid skill sharing.

That is part of mutual aid is.

It's not.

It's not just resources.

That's what I'm saying.

It's a pr.

Mutual aid is just a principle, a practice.

It's just a practice of reciprocity and being.

Being accountable for the fact that you're not alone in the universe.

It's not comp.

So, yeah, you can ask for a camera lens, but that's fundraising to me.

See, I just think that's a.

To me, that's a.

It's just.

It sounds better to say nowadays, this is.

This term is popular.

I'm in the, you know, in the spirit of mutual aid, give me some money.

Like, I mean, we could all.

We all.

I mean, we could all do that.

But it's.

It's.

To me, it obfuscates what mutual aid is really about.

And the books are open.

Like, anyone that's listening to the show, you could find Dean Spade's book on mutual aid.

You can find mutual aid practitioner information online.

It's pretty easy to find.

And when you read this stuff, I think most people be like, it's common sense.

It's really common sense.

It really.

It really is.

So I think all of that is just like word salad.

It's just like, this is this.

It sounds better than saying, I'm fundraising so I can have better equipment, so I can make more money.

Right?

So.

Which is good to me.

That sounds good to me.

Because you don't value.

Because you're not adding.

You're not.

Yeah, it's just, like, value statements.

Right?

It's like, if I ask for this in this particular way, it's value different than this.

And I just think it has to do with being like, because we, in this western society we live in, there's this like have and have nots and then there's this like winner and loser thing.

So I feel like a lot of people are disingenuous with how much they actually want to be part of community because that's what mutual aid is too.

Right.

Like, so they should be asking their community or the community that they're part of and they should also be offering something like it should be some alignment there and then, and then those requests are more easily fulfilled on both ends.

Right.

So like if you're just random, which is why I don't like the digital realm asking for funds just randomly online.

I don't want to get too dark, but I just, I believe there's a grift there.

Honestly, I believe there's a grift there as well.

Because there's like certain things that people do and I usually like the ones I usually see.

They're almost predominantly women or femme seeking folk which goes into our misandry aspects of our culture.

Right.

Men get to get, get up, go get a job, like you know, like it's just, and it's usually.

And then there's like these other tropes around surgeries and things like that that I see regularly and I think those things are important in, in, in communities other.

But I think it's become so widespread that I, I, I would not be surprised there's a grift there.

So I think also if it's mutual aid, there should be receipts.

All the mutual aid work I do, there's receipts for every dime.

Every penny is accountable.

So if it's mutual aid, it should be transparent and that will that alleviate, that alleviates the aspect of grif.

Right.

So if you've given somebody some bread at some point there should be some, the reciprocity should at minimum be showing you, hi, I achieved that goal.

Yeah.

You know, if it's food and stuff, I mean to each day own, I don't need nobody giving me receipts for every dollar they spend on a dot on, on some bread.

But we're talking, if we're talking, you know, I think it's context specific but for sure things will really let you know.

Those are really good signs that folks are trying to be in community when it's not one way that's, that's a good way of showing reciprocity.

Right.

Even if it's just open communication.

I'm not Asking to split a vein.

But like, if somebody's get.

If you got people giving you a ton of money, they want to know that they worked out too, right?

At min.

Yeah, that's real.

That's real.

Yeah, that's real.

So that's a good way of like approaching it.

And like anyone out there trying to do mutual aid, be sure that you're just as eager once you got.

You achieved your goal of communicating that and being like, it's a good sign that you're actually trying to be in community.

Right?

Yeah, no, that's, that's very helpful.

Thank you for breaking all that down.

I see clearly now.

You know, so you did mention Love Fridge.

Love Fridge Chicago, which is an organization that you helped co found, which is really cool.

It's Community Fridges.

So to anyone who doesn't know and let me know if I'm explaining it wrong, but basically it's fridges that folks stock with food for folks that need food.

It's like, you give food, you take food, you give food, you take food.

And so Love Fridge is pretty cool because they also have resources from other organizations to stock fridge food.

But then it's also a place where I know I've brought food to fridges, you know, like after I finished a commercial, you know, like things left over.

Basically.

It's like perfectly good food that can go there.

These are particularly all over Chicago, but you can find like the whole community fridge space all over the country, right?

Yes.

There's a national movement around community fridges.

The Chicago Love Fridge program.

We, we, we're.

We, we're.

We have particular things that we really focused on and we practice mutual aid.

I don't, I wouldn't say all community fridges or like networks are mutual aid practitioners.

And that's not to say that they're not resource providers, but we really do.

I spend a lot of time working within the community in these spaces.

To the fridges are conduits or amplification of work being done.

There's a lot of work that's done out like invisible.

And they should remain invisible for a lot of reasons, like our community agreement.

We do not record or leverage.

We don't record people.

We don't document those in need.

And a big part of the reason why I invested in this when we to begin with is because of the anonymity that it offers those that need resources.

No one needs to know what you need.

It ain't nobody's business.

It ain't nobody's business what you give in either this isn't a.

This isn't a influencer thing.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, so.

So it doesn't matter how much I do.

It doesn't matter how long I've been doing it.

Everyone is equal.

This is.

I mean, I practice horizontality, which is part of our, the Love Fridge principles as well.

That means everyone is equal.

Do I have a lot of responsibilities right now?

Yeah, but I, But I'm.

But everyone is equal.

It's not a.

There is no hierarchy.

And so, yes, I am a co founder.

We call ourselves Spokes.

There is no leader, there is no beginning, there is no middle, and there's no end.

And I'm.

That's why I'm invested in this.

But yes, there's fridges all across Chicago.

We're going.

This is our fourth year anniversary this year.

Happy anniversary.

And you know, it's become a kind of a staple here in Chicago as far as like a.

A re.

A place to offer resources.

We're also part of a group that we were one of the founding members.

Like, we're all.

It's when I say these things, when I say we're.

We're members, it's.

We're equal.

I just.

My main focus as a spoke, like on a wheel is I'm a spoke for the Love Fridge, but I'm also a member of the Chicago Foodland Sovereignty Coalition, which is 30 plus mutual aid groups across Chicago.

We work for grants and we work with dcffd, which is the Chicago Greater Food Depository.

We work with black farmers, bipoc farmers, urban growings, collectives, and all across Chicagoland to get excess resources and to get those into spaces.

So we specifically work to get resources into community fridges located across Chicago.

The Chicago Food Land Coalition members are vast.

And some, a lot of folks do direct aid.

Some folks get like.

Some folks just do food rescue.

Some folks are like, food not bombs is like Rogers Park.

Food Not Bombs is a member, McKinley Park.

There's like 30 plus.

And what this offered us, we.

And we keep inviting more mutual aid groups in because the idea is we're all in solidarity.

As long as we're in solidarity, we're working towards the same goal.

And this allows us to not step on each other's toes, but also to try to illuminate some of the L lines or pathways to getting resources and the act and the access to resources we already have.

Right.

So people weren't trying to like crew like rebuild the wheel that's already there.

Like just jump on the jump on the jump, on the, on the bike.

We're already moving.

Get on the bike.

And you know, if.

So I'm really happy about that.

The coalition.

I'll keep this short, but early on we did a lot of research.

I think like a year of research of different ways of creating hubs.

We had all kinds of ideas.

There was refrigerated trucks that would be in different areas of Chicago.

At one point we were thinking about leasing storefronts because they were all closing of grocery stores in different areas.

And we finally came up on a solution that we would needed not only refrigerated space, but a hut, but spaces that were large enough that we could also break food down, do composting and all those things.

So we now lease.

We have like two leases.

I won't disclose everything just because we just don't.

But we have two spaces on the north.

We have one space on the north side and one in Pilsen that allows us to do long term storage and like freezer refrigerated storage and dry storage for resources that we get.

And like I said, the greater food depository is one of our, our com or one of our partners or in.

In one sense they don't give us any funds but like excess stuff they might have, like they won't take damaged items.

So like if a, a pallet of water is broken, if the pallet was broken, not the water, but the pallet was broken, it's no longer mint condition.

And so we get items like that.

We get things that like.

Because they don't want to even deal with it if it's not per.

Like so we get, you know, you, it's.

Yeah, they got so much.

Right?

I'm keep this.

But I'm gonna say they got so much that they could be like, ah, that one's got a blemish.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, y'all want that one.

And so we'll take.

We.

So we get surplus from them as well as other folk and put this stuff in these hubs and then it's like divided amongst those that are, that are situated in those hubs and dispersed amongst the community.

Wow, that was a mouthful.

So.

But yeah, it's important to know that there's a lot of.

It's.

It's every day, this is happening every day, like seven days a week every day.

There's people like that have, that have been trained to use trucks and we do food rescue call outs.

Anyone that's listening to this call, if you're interested, you can email us at the Love for Chicago or you can reach out to Chicagoland Food Sovereignty Coalition to find out more information.

There's a whole onboarding process.

This isn't honeycomb or something where you can just pop in and pop out.

There's a lot of, there's a lot that.

There's an onboarding process that, that, that's really important to us.

But if you're interested, there's always food rescue opportunities that are coming up all the time because we have relationships with like grocery stores and like all across Chicago and they'll just randomly hit us up.

And so we're constantly, we're constant.

I mean, so people are constantly like running all over the place.

And then there's spots we have that are consistent.

There are spots that we have consistent donations.

I'll say.

But then there's other spots that might be more random.

Like just because we're like to give a context, we have our first solar fridge we built.

It's going on two and a half years now in Inglewood with.

It's in a garden called Libations to the Ancestors, which is a family run community garden by Taryn.

I can't remember Taryn's last name, but they were.

It's a family.

I can't remember their name right.

Their last name right now.

But it's a family garden that they do mentorship on like land appreciation and stuff.

But it's also part of a larger thing that Taryn runs called Getting Grown Collective, which you might be familiar with.

Okay.

I think I've heard of it.

And they're also part of that.

They're, they're connected with a lot of the greening of Inglewood and like AUA and programs like that that are basically around like land ownership and like stewarding of like spaces and you know, south on the south side and west sides of Chicago.

Yeah, all across Chicago, to be honest.

But those are the kind of relationships that we like to foster or to like amplify.

So the fridge we have there for is our first solar fridge.

And the neighborhood it's in allows us to.

We have individuals that live in a neighborhood that we've enlisted to do food rescue.

So we're not asking folks from other neighborhoods to come into their neighborhood.

Even though we still go there.

We want, we really want to be hyper local as possible.

So in a lot of these spots, people want to help, but they might not have extra bread to drive all across Chicago because that's costly.

Right?

Yeah.

So we compensate.

So what we've Done is I.

Once we.

These folks have been enlisted by the host or the community partner and we have.

There's a good relationship there.

Like I said, we will pay stipends.

We will pay them for their time.

So.

And then we've been doing that now for a couple of years.

And I really like it because it's quiet, but it allows people to be engaged and their time is compensated.

And it also allows us to have a voice in that community that's based on the folks that actually pay rent or own homes in that neighborhood and have a vested interest in that neighborhood, not in a photo op.

So.

Yeah, that's really important.

Well, you know what I'm saying.

It's like, I know.

I like.

It's real out here, though.

I like that you, you know, like, there's like this real moving silence, like, principle in you, you know, just to like.

Yeah.

Like, it's not about.

It's not about posts and, you know, showing people what you're doing.

It's about action.

And it makes me think, like, I should probably.

Even though I've said, like all this time, like, oh, yeah, I need to volunteer with love for.

I should probably do it more because, like, I have a dream to have a grocery store one day.

Like, these could be my mini little grocery stores, you know, It's a lot of work, though.

It's a lot of.

It's a lot of human interaction.

So our onboarding process we have, it's.

We spend a lot of time, like, fermenting, like, sop.

We do a lot around this because it's like, it's a big deal, like putting a site down.

It's a big deal.

Like, you need.

You really need to be aware that the getting food is not the hard part.

The hard part is maintaining a site.

And maintaining a site can take a lot of different things.

Like, a lot of different.

Like one of the issues.

This is anecdotal.

Every site is different.

But there was this site we had.

It was up for quite a while on south on South Prairie, which is downtown.

This food photographer is really great guy named Dan Goldberg wanted to have a site because he does food photography and he often has surplus food.

Yeah.

So he was.

He was handing it out to houseless folk, which is.

Can be an issue too.

When you just bring a resource to an area.

There's.

There's.

There's things around that you might think you're doing good, but you might actually be doing more harm by just like taking a bunch of resources somewhere and then being like, Here, like it can.

It can actually create more issues.

So we, like, Dan had surplus food, so we built a site there.

He actually did most of it because he had this.

He has a studio there.

But the first week or so he was hitting me up and he's like, e, nobody's coming.

They call it this.

It's packed to the gills and I don't see anybody yet.

I'm like, well, we just put it on the mint.

We just put it on the map.

We just did an Instagram post.

It just went in our newsletter.

Give it a couple of days.

Two weeks tops.

Like two weeks tops.

And you will never have that problem again.

Trust, trust me, within like four days.

He was like, oh, yeah, yeah.

Weren't lying.

Like, once a site is there and people know it's there and there's resources offered, those resources will.

They will.

They will move.

Yeah.

No matter.

And this is a pretty affluent area of Chicago that the studio was in, but it also had folks that were in.

What do you call it in housing.

There's a term, but I can't.

It just escapes me right now.

So you had.

Not shelters, just like.

I guess it's like rent control.

There's a term for it.

I can't remember probably.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's just.

Yeah.

It's just obvious that they're there in a housing complex and then they're surrounded.

Like, you got folks that are.

Like you got folks that own million dollar homes and houses and then you got folks that evidently don't.

Yeah.

In the same.

In the same area.

Which eventually caused an issue.

The site was up for quite a while.

And I like to talk about issues, but I think this is important just to mention that the host really wanted to keep the site, but some of his neighbors.

It just wasn't conducive to what we like to do, which is the community has to be supportive of a site.

We don't just.

It's not a vending machine.

So if there's not that.

If that energy is not there, we don't want.

We don't want to support a site that's got.

That's putting people at risk of like that kind of energy or much less this program, the larger program.

We don't.

We barely get any press.

Unless they want to talk about Thanksgiving or some corny something like that.

You can read a million articles.

They never get past C.

It always goes abc.

And then they stop maybe a couple of times.

D and E.

I've had a few folks reach out because fridges Spend less energy than a cell phone in a day.

There's actually like the waste, like the, the amount of environmental waste.

We're actually helping with environmental waste in multiple factors.

By offering food to folks that would go into a landfill.

We're helping, but also recycling or upcycling of fridges.

Upcycling of things to some folks, they're enamored by that.

I'm, as a designer, I like all of these things is why my opus has always been around a totally autonomous vehicle for this being a solar something that we weren't.

We're not taxing the neighbors because we'll pay for electricity.

But the idea that we could build something that doesn't ask resources from anyone at all I think is optimal.

It's optimal for so many reasons.

So we keep working on designs and furthering our case studies on solar fridges and the different models and how much power they need.

And it's interesting though because you run into some, like I said, this is all human based stuff.

You start running into issues that you had no idea you would have to run into when you offer a free power supply.

Like, you know, all of a sudden it's like, oh, okay, didn't think about that one.

All right, yeah.

And that's for.

Yeah, I digress.

But, but long story short.

Yeah, long story short, the Loveridge is community based program around just getting resources to folks.

It's a passion project.

It's.

I mean, you know, but it's very nuanced.

So you, you mentioned horizontality.

Hor.

Is that right?

Dice?

Horizontality.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Horizontality.

Equal.

Just an equal plane.

It's just like a.

I mean there's.

You could look it up, but basically it's the practice of removing hierarchy.

And it's actually a practice too.

It's not.

None of this is dogmatic.

It's not.

You do this thing and then this happens.

Not just add water.

I'll just give you a anecdotal example of horizontality.

It's why I call myself Bespoke.

I don't often use the term co founder unless I'm speaking to folks that aren't necessarily familiar with the way this, the way the way we operate.

But the context is, even though I might have been around since the beginning, you're just as valued as I am.

Your opinion is just as valued.

What you offer is just as value.

And so in order to con can.

To have that kind of space, we have to openly agree which we have a community agreement which is available to anyone if they're interested, and we ask people to sign on to that if they work with us.

Um, and there's some.

Some key.

Some major red flags if you don't.

If you can't meet these, we just won't rock with you.

Number one, no personal leveraging.

So these aren't influence.

These aren't influence magnets.

These aren't spots for you to go take photos out in front of with your homies because you offered some food to somebody.

It sounds crazy to have to say that, but, you know, it's 20, 24.

Oh, yeah.

I went out with a guy that had a.

Not for profit.

They had a turkey drive, and he wanted to take pictures of the people picking up turkeys.

And I'm just like, that's so rude and not necessary.

Like, let them take their turkeys.

Yeah.

It's straight othering.

Yeah.

Take their food and just go about the business.

Like, who cares?

You gonna pay them for the photos?

Like, pay them, right?

Get they, get them, get they.

If you go.

If you using it.

Because you're literally using it to.

To boost your own relevancy.

So give them some bread.

Give them some bread, bro.

If you got like.

Like, pay them.

Pay them for being extras in your models, right?

Because that's what you doing.

You using.

They came to get something to eat and you netting them.

You putting them in the net so you could put them on the net.

Like, you literally are like, you know, you gave food once, you gave food once.

How many times is that thing going to be used?

Right?

Is that equivalent?

Is that even.

I'll give you.

I'll give you a bag of food, and then I'm online forever.

Yeah.

And it's also like, it probably took this person a lot of courage to say, you know what?

Actually let me go and get these things, you know?

Cause you got to be in line, like, out on the street.

People have like big.

Like, that's like a big.

Like, that's enough already.

Yeah.

You're already asking enough of them already.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's like, there's no need to.

Yeah, there's no need to do that.

Nah, it's a.

You know, that's just why we.

The big.

I guess if we're gonna.

I don't know how much longer we're gonna talk about mutually, but I don't make sure I get this in.

We believe there's a difference between mutual aid and charity.

Yeah.

Charity is the dick dictates what people.

You're dictating what people need and what they're going to get.

Yeah, mutual aid.

The way we practice it, we get whatever we can get a hold of.

If we find out people need things, we go get those things.

So we offer fresh food, fresh vegetables, grains, meals.

I do programs where we offer fresh made meals because there's people that need something to eat right.

Then they don't have a place to make food.

We also offer hygiene, laundry stuff, and even pet food.

There's like, like groups we work with where we can offer pet food because people will sacrifice their own meals to get food for their animals.

Or vice versa.

Right.

Or vice versa.

If they don't have a lot of money, then, hey, you gotta eat.

You gotta eat scraps or something.

My guy, like, so this.

And there's even been times when we've offered Norcan.

That program isn't going on right now.

We haven't really.

Hasn't been really urgent.

But for a while we're offering NORCAN at sites and also feminine hygiene products.

Norcan.

What's norcan?

It's the stuff for when people have fentanyl.

When they OD on fentanyl and it's the stuff they can spray.

They can like spray on.

Oh, wow.

They inhale it and it'll get them out of that.

Oh, like it'll keep them from dying.

Wow.

It'll literally keep them from dying.

So.

Yeah.

So like.

Yeah.

And also we like groups will.

Will offer even information.

There's sites where, I mean, people leave clothes and stuff.

We really don't want them doing that.

We really don't.

Because you shouldn't leave clothes outside.

They're not.

These vehicles are not designed around.

And I don't know about you, but I don't want no damp clothes.

No.

Right.

I don't want clothes like.

So we're really trying to shy away, like, but sometimes people just leave things like that.

But also a lot of them have lending libraries like people, so they'll have books too, that people can share.

And then there's sites like, they don't have like DV or domestic violence outreach spaces like, like the information for folks too, that we don't mind.

We don't let people like put propaganda on our sites per se.

But if it's something we believe is a resource that folks need or want, we'll allow that.

But we don't really have a lot of flyering, thankfully, because that just creates.

They can just.

They're not really about.

It's not really ideal for flyering, but sometimes people do.

We've had to like Let a few.

I'm.

I will leave them unnamed, but I'm gonna clown them a little bit.

We had this group that offered food maybe for like a week, maybe couple weeks, and they started leaving yoga.

Like this was done like flyers on stuff about where they their yoga space and how they're the ones that offered to food.

We had to be like, come on, man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like it's not about you.

Like, like it's, you know, like do your little Instagram or whatever.

But you're like literally leaving stuff that becomes trash.

Like, yeah, like if everybody put a flyer that put food out, like, like, you know, saying like the out.

Like this is a community space.

Treat it like a community space.

So.

Right, right.

And like sustainability and like keeping it nice.

Yeah, yeah, but you know, but like I said all that.

We appreciate every.

There's appreciation for anyone that can offer support.

So I don't want this to sound like just, you know, but just make sure that you're thinking about like how you leave a site and what.

And like it's kind of important, you know.

Yeah.

So I want to ask you about your artwork, but before going to that you had.

I wondered if you had any other like values of your practice.

So it was the horizontality, reciprocity, it seems like, do you have like a bank of like you were going through?

I mean, like, you know, mutual aid is not charity.

So that's the main.

That's the main one.

Like.

And I think like we don't.

And the charity is defined as you offering things to people because you deem those are important to them.

Yeah.

And also it also puts you.

Centers you.

Because you're censoring yourself.

Right.

You're saying, I know what people need.

I'm also provide what people need.

And so we work.

We don't work in that way.

It's really important.

And we're not an nfp.

We're not a non for profit, which means there is no board of directors.

We don't take a dime.

There is no salary positions.

All the funds we gather are gone toward the mission.

And they're all transparent.

We have our annual report is open every day.

Like it's a running tab of what we spend and what we have.

So those things are transparent.

NFPs, you know, have different rates of how much they actually spend on the mission.

You know, I mean, I think the National Cancer association spends less than 1% on actual cancer research.

Wow.

Most groups, I think we spend maybe close to.

I think we're around like 95 to 98% of our funds go toward the project.

The rest goes to.

How do you track it?

With QuickBooks?

No, we have physical sponsors that do our accounting for us.

So we have people.

We have.

We have people that will police us.

If you get my.

In one context, we're not.

Because, you know, we could just.

That is important, too, to have some kind of accountability.

So because we're not an nfp, we have to use a physical sponsor, which means an NFP that is in alignment with our program.

And basically they house our money for us, which allows us to not become an nfp.

So.

And the benefits of that is that because we're not an nfp, it means we can have board meetings or meetings and come to consult, consensus and make a move immediately.

Yeah, that's nice.

That's nice.

Immediately.

That's really.

So, like, if something happens in the beginning of the week, by the end of the week, we could be.

It could be solved where.

If you've done any mutual.

If you've done any NFP work, and I work in NFP structures, too.

I'm currently the president of the Chicago Printers Guild.

I'm not saying NFPs aren't useful.

They're just, in my opinion, things dealing with the urgency of human care, community care.

Yeah.

Through that lens of NFP structures, I feel is flawed.

And that's why we.

I would.

We.

Early on, we started doing the Love Fridge program.

I actually put my foot down and said, if we were going to be an nfp, I would just be supportive.

But I didn't want to be a core member because I think NFPs run into a lot of issues, um, especially around the kind of work we were doing.

Um, but so, yeah, our accounting.

We have.

We.

We have accountants that are connected to our feasible sponsor.

Nice.

Um, I'm.

I mean, I guess there's two.

We always have for each.

Each thing role.

There's two people in our group.

No one person should ever be operating off a horizontality.

At minimum, there's always two.

And so, you know, I do a lot of the fiduciary stuff.

And so I'm pretty much really well versed on that.

I do grants and all that too.

But what this allows us to do is we do everything like an nfp, except we don't have to pay a board.

I don't have to pay a bunch of rich people or maybe a little facetious right now, but I have to pay a bunch of people with some accreditations from my other stuff to sit on a board.

And make decisions on things that they don't actually do themselves.

Right, right, Man.

Who else to say it?

But that's kind of, you know, that's what it be like to me.

That's what it looked like to me.

So take that with a.

You know, I just hate with, like a board meeting if we don't have quorum.

And it's like, you know what?

I have left my family to come to this meeting, and we're not going to meet because half of us aren't here.

Like, I could have stayed with my parents, you know, so.

Yeah, y'all should start doing them virtually at least.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

No, we do.

That was like another.

Another board that I was on.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's the one thing I like about.

Zoom in all this rain.

But, yeah, yeah.

Oh, I wasn't.

No, no shade.

No shade.

But.

Oh, no, no, I know you weren't.

I know you weren't.

Yeah, but.

But.

But it's less of an excuse with this virtual stuff.

You get more.

To me, I think you get more done with certain meetings on this because it's like, oh, you're either.

You're not spending as much time, like, I don't know.

But yeah, it was good.

It was good for us.

Yeah, it's good for us.

And with all that you have going on, you have a whole art practice on top of that, and you're a.

Dad, so, like, happy father.

Yeah.

That's really cool.

You know, I love my dad, so I love seeing you with your kid.

I think it's really sweet.

I wanted to ask, so you just had a beautiful, beautiful exhibition closed at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, and I was curious what drew you to printmaking?

The especially.

I love printmaking.

I don't know a lot about it, but the lithographs, like, I'm just curious how you came to that medium.

Let me see.

I mean, I've always enjoyed print media.

I mean, I used to do illustrate, and I don't illustrate anymore.

Like, I don't think of myself as an illustrator anymore.

But I mean, my.

My first love for mark making in practice would probably be around drafting and things like that, so.

And I also used to be an anchor for comic illustrations for comic companies and stuff like that.

When I first moved to Chicago, I thought that would probably be what I would pursue, would be working in the comic industry as an illustrator or anchor.

And I did it for a little while and realized that while I could do it, it did not meet, it did not fulfill me.

And so for a lot of reasons, but it did not fulfill me.

And I needed more of a cha.

I wanted more of a challenge, and I wanted to learn more.

And so I went to the Art Institute of Chicago.

I was already screen printing before I went back to school.

Okay.

But what I like is in.

To keep it really simple.

I enjoy making art in all kinds of different things, Sculptural stuff, community spaces, all of that.

But.

But print is the democracy.

I believe in a democracy of the page.

Print allows you to disseminate ideas as much as you want by making a multiple.

Right.

I can make as many as I want.

I can sell them or I can share.

I can put them out for free and can't nobody tell me nothing.

I can put my opinions out.

That's what I love that at its core, that's what I love about print.

As a black man in America, as a black man in.

Like a black man in the 21st century, having the.

Having the ability to disseminate my own ideas the way I want them, how I want them, what I want to say with no BTUs, because these things, you don't own that.

You don't own that.

You.

Where.

People publish on these all the time now, but it's temporary.

It's temporary.

Whereas I can print 100,000, 10,000, 500 or something.

And it can go in collections, it can go to you, it can go to me.

It can go.

It can be reprint, it can be reprinted, which is fascinating.

There's been things I've been part of.

Now there's a book called what Can Publishers do now, that half letterpress released maybe six years ago, maybe five years ago now, and it's been reprinted, like, in six different languages.

And I get.

Right.

I get people writing me from Japan or Colombia or Parisian folk.

Yeah.

That have read my words, that have been translated in these pieces.

That's what print is, right?

Like.

Like a momentary.

A moment I had that I captured in writing was put into print.

And now it's out there forever, right?

My opinion is out there forever.

I don't need Twitter, I don't need Instagram to get my.

Like, I mean, it's the original way.

I mean, the Bible.

I mean, I'm not religious, but, like, I can philosophically.

Let's break it down, right?

Print allowed the word of God to be disseminated, right.

For folks to.

It wasn't control.

It removed the control of religion, of the.

Of Judeo Christianity.

Let's focus on that, right?

It allowed different folk to interpret that.

That word.

Right?

I mean, originally people didn't read.

Yeah, nobody was reading.

People read to them.

So as a black man, I'll go back to that.

I think we should be all in this space because the narrative is not controlled by us.

And we live in an anti black society that's constantly diminishing us.

And how do you fight against that when it's.

How do you, how do you, how do you fight against that if you don't create diverse spaces for us?

Right.

And so for me, publication space not only in my own work, but also have Flatland Press, which I print books, I create books, I publish books and printed matter for other artists that I did.

I want to see out in the universe.

This is also this hierarchical belief that if something's not like, books make people more important.

I like books, but there's also this.

So if it's not in a book, there's a whole lot of folk out here, they don't take it that serious.

Much like the mutual aid stuff we were talking about earlier, like I've been practicing my whole life.

This person makes a book on it and then all of a sudden it's everywhere.

Right.

So I'm not diminishing that book.

What I'm saying is creating these, like creating these multiples, putting them out there in the universe reinforces a philosophy or your way of life.

I'm a believer.

My paradigm is art theory, culture.

So you create it, then you figure out why.

And then after time it becomes practice.

And it's kind of evident with like things like love fridge.

It works that way.

First we made the thing, then we worked out the key.

We're constantly working on, develop on how we can do better.

But it's culturally changed Chicago.

I can honestly say that there's spots like we do not videotape people.

So you have to take my word on it.

But when I go to these sites, folks know what they're.

They know we're there to help.

They help me unload the car, they clean people.

Cleansing, like it's community supported thing.

And that's why I've invested in it.

If the community didn't want it, they wouldn't work.

It wouldn't last.

If the community didn't want these spaces, they don't get vandalized, they don't get like there's a lot of support.

It's not just us, it's the community.

This is why we call it.

This is why mutual aid to me is quite different than charity.

It's quite different than these other models.

People respect that we are there, we are coming as equals, and they help and we're able to help.

And it.

It reinforces that we're all the same, man.

People just need something.

This is ridiculous.

We're spending billions of dollars on trash.

Yeah.

And we got folks in this country that just don't even have access.

We have folks in this state, in the city.

They don't have access to clean drinking water.

Own homes.

Yeah, yeah, they're in these homes, but.

Their water is not drinkable.

So for me, I don't know if I lost the plot on that, but I'll stop there.

I think I might have lost.

I got off track.

But, you know, I think.

No, because I think what it just comes down to.

I was going to ask next if you were an only child.

Nope.

No, I was just.

Oh, oh, that's right.

That's right.

And you actually met her.

That's right.

Yeah, that's right.

Because I wondered about, like, it just sounds like you're really good with sharing.

Now I'm an only child and so I guess I wonder, like, I've always liked sharing.

I've always liked sharing.

Yeah.

When I cook and I cook, I overcook so people can come eat.

This is how I.

That's how I grew up.

Like I said, it's.

It's probably.

I mean, I'm my.

My mom's side, who I'm the probably the closest to are all Catholic.

And so that could be.

There's going to be some underpinnings of that, which is you just.

We just share, we just get.

It's a giving.

We just.

It's.

I don't.

I don't know, like, to me, I don't make art to get paid.

I've never made art.

I make art because I have to.

It's cathartic.

Yeah.

It took me a long time to be like, oh, you know what?

I'm gonna do art as a living.

I mean, even when I was at the Art Institute, during that process, yeah, I was working on my.

My own craft, but I was also thinking about how I could get some money in my pocket.

So I focused a lot on visual.

On visual communications, I.

E.

Graphic design, marketing.

So I was working in marketing firms.

By my sophomore year at Dart Institute, I was working at.

Draft was my first firm I ever worked at, which is now Draft fcb.

Okay.

And so.

And part of that is because I'm an anarchist.

At my core, I'm an anarchist and not what people might think an anarchist is.

To me, I believe in the true philosophy of anarchy, which is it's not the.

The strongest survive.

It's the strongest groups survive, which is, none of us would be here.

The dark.

The idea of Darwin philosophy on humanity is flawed.

No one human could make it on their own.

It was tribes.

Yeah.

And so I still believe in that.

And I think the capitalist model is based off of the.

It fleeces that.

Right.

It's like someone becomes a champion of something at everyone else's demise.

Right.

Like, I don't believe there should be a billionaire.

No one person should.

It shouldn't be possible to be a billionaire.

It makes no sense.

It makes no sense.

So at my core, I'm an anarchist.

And that means that I believe that.

And that's based off of my belief in horizontality and that we should all be equals.

And if we're all aiming to be equals, the capitalist model does not support that at all.

It does not support that.

And you can tell it doesn't support that when, you know, I'll get political.

The Supreme Court votes.

Votes in Citizens United, which makes money equal free speech.

So that means if I got no money, I don't have a voice.

Which goes back to your original question on asking me why do I work in print.

I work in print for a lot of reasons, but can nobody tell me what I can print and put out there?

So I can put information out there.

I can educate folk without charging them anything or charging whatever I want.

Yeah.

And.

And putting it wherever I want.

So that's.

That's part of why I work in print.

Pick your colors because everything always looks so pretty.

It's just themes.

Themes.

You know, I love color.

I like color theory.

It's just themes.

If you're talking about the show.

Drawn through restraint.

Those colors are picked specifically to play off of the harsh.

Kind of juxtapose, the harsh materiality I was playing with.

So I played with, like, gentle colors or.

Or graded colors that had gradations.

So a lot of that played off of.

I don't want to say a floral pattern, but I definitely leaned into my love for orchids, which are a symbolic gesture in the show as well.

There's multiple orchids in the show that also, like, played with the colors that were using some of the lithography.

But honestly, color for me is mood.

It's often mood.

You know, it's like if you're playing music, you know, from playing one kind of song, I might, you know, if you're making one kind of form of music, you might lean into some Keys versus some strings.

What, like, with this exhibit, what messages or emotions did you.

Did, like, viewers have of it or that you hope that they took away from the work?

Man, it's hard to.

I really.

It's really hard to find out what people really think.

You know what I mean?

Because it's like when you did the work.

Right.

But for me, the work was like.

I purposely give myself restraints when I think of art.

Like, I'm also a designer.

So, like, art and design are different to me, but sometimes they cross over.

So for this, I gave myself purposeful restraints from day one.

And I didn't want to work on the computer.

I didn't want this to be computer assisted or digitally.

Like, I didn't want this.

I wanted this to be as analog work, to be as analog and visceral and gestural as possible.

So I put a lot of restraints on myself for building those images.

Nothing was photographed or manipulated before it was created into full disclosure for the audience.

She's.

We're talking about lithography plates that were made.

There was the caution tape to create a little bit of grain pressed with glass.

Eight monotypes.

It took a year of building assets.

And I think I was spending like two days a week, usually a Monday and a Sunday, a Sunday to a Monday, in two different studios with another printer named Gabe Orr, who's a good friend and one of the only other people who's ever printed my work.

I normally print all my work myself.

This was a gift to have someone who would help me so I could just be an artist and not get caught up in the.

All of the nuances of the technicality of printing.

And I love Gabe.

Gabe's a friend.

But Gabe's also appreciates my methodology, I believe, and wanted to invest in me.

Just being in, as I.

And I quote, is like, you do so much.

I just want to.

I want to work with you and help you do some stuff, which was quite sweet.

Which is.

Yeah.

And so reciprocity.

So I hope some of that comes out when you see the work is that those are days and months and.

And of time spent and with another.

With another person and their stories and is like the.

Just the camaraderie that comes around spending that time and playing music with each other and talking about all the things going on and having this, like, really quiet space where I'm not online, I'm not on a computer to create these.

These images and to come up with the color palette and all of that over time and then sit with it.

And that's what I want through the process, through people looking at this body of work.

Honestly, any art I make, I hope that people sit with it.

I don't make stickers per se.

So the longer you sit with it, it should evolve or.

And I'm a practitioner of slow media.

I believe that, like, I love slow media.

I think with the advent of AI art and just like the hyper reality we live in where everything's jump cut and smashed together.

I don't really watch tv, but I was watching the Olympics with my daughter, been watching the Olympics with my daughter because she's loves volleyball.

And so we're watching these games and every time out they smash these commercials in.

And I haven't watched mean.

I'm a.

I worked in bavertizing for way too long.

I detest, I detest commercials.

I think they're probably the most recessive thing ever.

And the patterns, the way they're created, I mean, I don't like TV much at all.

I grew up abroad, which is, I didn't really grew up with a lot of tv.

I like movies.

I grew up with more movies.

Not, not saying that movies are better, but the format of tv, I have a hard time with the rigid format.

I cannot stand canned laughter.

Since I was a kid, always been weirded out by canned laughter, which is like, this is phony, it's fake.

Why?

It's like.

And it's jammed in there.

That wasn't funny.

Like, it like, that wasn't even funny.

And so why did I say, why did I bring up commercials?

There's a reason I brought up commercials.

Oh, you're watching tv, slow media.

So I'm watching and I'm watching the way they're jamming these commercials in.

And they're not even, they're hyphenated, they're not even showing.

Like to get as many of them they can in so they can make that ad revenue.

They shove like four commercials into this one block.

And the first one was for some like, pharmaceutical.

They didn't even tell you what the pharmaceutical was.

They just told you what the side effects were.

I'm like, this is where we are, where you could just put a commercial up.

I watched it with my daughter and they're talking all kinds of wild side effects.

Like, you know, saying like, they just.

Threw out, like, what's this drug again?

Like, they threw everything out from cancer to like, they, they just like moving it on and moving on and it's just like that.

I don't think the human brain was Made for these things.

Yeah.

I don't believe we were made to ingest all of that on a regular basis without it having some impact on us.

So I believe in slow media for a lot of reasons.

I believe, like, headspace having, you know, giving yourself the space to interpret something the way you interpret it versus being forced or giving guardrails on how to interpret it.

And I think slow, like, so for me, textural, visceral qualities of things are really important, you know, like.

And that goes back to, like, books.

My.

My love for books.

Like you.

You can.

I can have.

I can read a book multiple times, get different perspectives on it.

I can share that book.

No BTUs, you know, like, hey, Steph, this book is great.

Here, check it out.

You can read it.

You give it to a hundred other people, right?

Yeah.

It didn't cost.

No Congolese kid his foot.

It didn't cost.

You know, it's.

Yeah.

There's an externality to our universe, and I think we oftentimes do not want.

We're complicit in it.

And while I know I'm complicit in it, like just being on this object now or complicit into some capacity, I'm not saying I'm.

I'm above it, but having, like, respecting and my romance for slow media is because it limits the amount of damage we're two to our environment and to each other.

And it also allows for personal introspection.

And you can have it anywhere you want.

You could look at it on the beach.

You could look at it in your house, in your bedroom.

It's private.

It's.

And it's really an intimate thing.

And it'll be here long after I'm dust, you know, I have flat files and collections around the world of my work and work I've made with other people that'll be here long after I'm stardust to share what I thought, you know, so.

Yeah, that's really lovely.

It's like, all from today.

It just feels like you're a big, giant teddy bear.

Is it the beard?

No, it's just, like, so, like, it's all, like, you know, take your time.

It's cool.

It's love.

I'm going to take care of you.

I like that.

Yeah.

I mean, like, all you got is one day at a time.

Yeah.

It's all like one day at a time, you know?

And I'm always telling myself, you know, what I don't know could fill the universe.

So I try not to make any Assumptions and unlearning, which is a big part of my practice too, is unlearning.

I'm constantly like bombarded with concepts that like, oh, I had no idea.

I had no idea that one of the America's best lithographer, master lithographer Robert Blackburn, was a black man.

Oh, wow.

I didn't know that either.

That's something for you to go check out.

Yeah.

He printed everything.

He printed all of Rauschenberg's work.

Started at 17.

He was a prodigy at 17 years old.

Wow.

Wow.

Opened a print shop that still exists in New York that has the most.

Is that kind of started the community model in Western hemisphere on what a community print shop should look like.

So we offered folks, they didn't have to be institutional, they didn't have to have a bunch of money.

They could sweep a floor and get access to the studio, whatever they could do.

Which is.

Goes back into the concept of mutual aid.

Right.

If you want, like, we can find a space for you.

You don't have to have your daddy's money or what your mama's money to get access to an institution, to learn how to half ass do something, to then go out into the world and then learn how to really do it.

We can just teach it now.

And that's.

I think that's something I'll give Gabe credit for too.

Gabe actually got to work at one of Robert Blackburn's studios.

Oh, wow.

Very cool.

I found this out during our process of getting to know each other and I actually have taught, like, was on a panel with his.

His mentor, his.

His mentor or his teacher.

His name is Scott Phillips, I believe.

And Scott studied directly with Robert Blackburn and has followed his philosophy of sharing the art, sharing these, these techniques, and has like move has.

Has gone to like South Africa and other places on the planet to teach these methods, teach these methods of creating, like multiples.

So there's a long tradition and as you know, as a black person in this country, oftentimes we are like, like pedestals or like, or like literally anchors or foundations for things that we won't even know about.

So like, next time, like, so next time you looking at some Russian, just go look up the pedigree of Robert Blackburn and it'll make you shake your head.

Wow.

He's also a very giving person.

He did not care about money.

He did not care about, like being rich and famous.

And he just wanted to help create more.

He just loved the art of printmaking and sharing that technique.

And so those are kind of things.

Like I didn't know about him growing up.

Like, if I had known about him when I was, like a kid, I probably would have been more enthused about the art of printmaking even earlier.

Even earlier.

Yeah.

No, for sure.

That's.

That stuff definitely matters.

That stuff definitely matters.

You don't see us very often.

You do not see us.

I mean, right now we're in the modern art world.

I feel like it's really popular to show a lot of black painters.

Even though.

Which I.

Which I'm.

I'm.

I'm happy to.

Any black artist, any artist gets.

Anybody that gets shy, get.

Has a wit, you know, has witness for what they're doing.

Yeah.

But oftentimes feel like we're.

We're very categorized.

Right.

And so, you know, and we'll wrap it up here because I could see us going on for another hour and what I was about to say, so.

Oh, my gosh.

Well, I'll stop now.

Thank you for being on the show.

I appreciate you having me.

I really love Eric's energy.

I love his enthusiasm, his passion, his knowledge.

You know, as the kids say, let him cook.

You know, we let Eric cook today on Nosy af.

And when Eric and I had this conversation, it was in the warmer months.

It was right near the end of his exhibition at Tiger Strikes Asteroid closing.

And even though that was then, I think that his conversation, us hearing it now is just super duper timely.

Because during the holiday season, everyone is all cheerful.

Everyone's in a giving spirit.

We're donating money, we're sharing resources.

And that's really just like how Eric lives.

And I feel in this holiday season when everybody's feeling all cheery, maybe it's a good reminder to start being more cheery every day of our lives.

Please make sure that you check the show notes of today's episode.

Eric left tons and tons of information and I'm going to link to everything that he said in the show notes.

So if there's something that you were like, wait, what was that?

Please check the show notes because it will be there for you.

And hey, you know, happy holidays.

This has been another episode of Nosy af.

I'm your host, Stephanie Graham.